No. 7 Ironwood Ridge beat No. 10 Saguaro 4-1 on Monday to advance to the Division II quarterfinal round where the Nighthawks will face No. 2 Salpointe at the Tucson Racquet Club on Wednesday. The winner of that match will move to Casteel High School to take part in the semifinal round slated for Monday, April 28.

Salpointe beat No. 15 Fountain Hills 4-1 to set up the match with Ironwood Ridge. The Lancers beat Ironwood Ridge 4-1 in a section match on April 15.

Under the modified playoff format, all five matches will be played to completion in the first two rounds, starting with the 4’s and the 5’s. The semifinal round and the championship match will be played to three points starting with the 2’s and the 4’s to completion, followed by the 1’s, 3’s and 5’s all playing at the same time until a team reaches three points.

Saguaro’s top pair of seniors Bella Reyes and Maddie Tately improved to 13-0 on the year after outlasting Kallie George and Ameila Cutting of Ironwood Ridge 21-18 and 22-20. The Nighthawks led 13-10 in the first set and then 19-16 in the deciding set but Reyes and Tately battled back twice to remain clean.

Reyes and former Saguaro standout Ava Cotton (Westmont) took second place to Lane Sheedy and Alexa Helms of Arcadia (21-17 13-21 15-10) at the state pairs competition last spring but Reyes and Tately beat Sheedy and Helms 21-17, 21-17 on March 19 in a section match. George and Cutting took Sheedy and Helms to three sets (19-21, 21-15, 11-15) on April 3. Expect all three pairs to seeded highly for pairs competition set to start on May 5 at Casteel.

As a team, Ironwood Ridge is 12-3 and Saguaro ended the playoffs with a 9-4 record.